While Holy Week in Guatemala is a huge deal, the actual day of the Resurrection is less so. For example, I went to a bilingual service this morning (great for community and ambiance, terrible for the music given that half of the congregation will always be singing in their non-native tongue) and walked through a bustling market. Easter morning at 8:30 was business as usual, but almost everything was closed on Good Friday. Also, as far as I know, there's only one parade scheduled for today, Easter Sunday, while there were at least seven on Friday.
This blog entry will mostly be photos, and I have finally gotten around to depositing many more of my pictures on Shutterfly. You can visit them at http://katyphelpsmiller.shutterfly.com, the password is rice09.
Without further ado, here is a float celebrating the Virgin of Sorrows. This procession wound its way around the Parque Central, and I especially loved watching the parades at night. The illumination is spectacular!
Here we have a close-up shot of the alfombras (carpets) made of sand, sawdust, and milled flowers that line the procession routes on Good Friday. The designs are so intricate and must take hours to put together, but they exist only to be walked over by the men and women carrying the floats.
Some more alfombra shots, these ones leading into the Parque Central. You can see another parade passing towards the end of the block in the first photo. The Parque was unquestionably THE place to be on Friday.
This angel float was the first procession we saw Friday morning. Doña Elena's god-son was carrying the float, and while she insists that normally she doesn't like walking all over the city to see the processions that happen the same way every year, Doña Elena made an exception to see her god-son. We woke up and had pancakes, and cereal, and sweet bread, and coffee before 8 and then trouped up the hill as a group to watch the parade go by.
I loved watching these little girls! They were precious with their angel wings, and much better behaved than I feel I would have been in their place.
Each procession also includes at least one band. The Friday morning procession, however, contained the first band with female musicians that I had seen all week. Girl power!
Also, if you were wondering how the lights on the floats were powered, (as I was), someone behind the float has the very important job of pushing the motor.
The streets of Xela are only full of processions one week a year. Therefore, it's understandable that the power lines were not implemented with the floats in mind. Yet another someone with an oh-so-important job is the man in charge of lifting the power lines out of the way of angels' wings, virgins' halos, or other such appendages.
The next few photos are from Thursday evening. Our vantage point was on Avenida 12, three or four blocks above the Parque. The next morning, this road would be covered with the alfombras pictured above.
Maundy Thursday is a special day for processions because the niños have their own parade, complete with all the solemnity of the adult processions. The floats, thankfully, are kid-friendly and child-sized. Here are the young ladies, all dressed in white, carrying an image of the Virgen toward the Cathedral in the Parque.
Purple is the traditional color of Lent, and this bunch of boys seems to be enjoying the chance to dress up and be the city's center of attention. The four year old in my homestay dressed up and accompanied one of the processions Friday evening, but I couldn't spot him in the crowd of participants and spectators. I'm sure he performed flawlessly though.
Finally, here is a representation of the Virgin passing in front of the main Cathedral at night. I loved the lighting of this shot and thought it would be a fitting selection to wrap up my selection of Semana Santa blog photos.
Semana Santa was by far the big event of my week, but I did manage to fit some other excitement into my otherwise lazy days. Since clinic was closed, I was able to climb two different summits outside of Xela. My homestay brother and I scaled la Muela (the volcanic rock scramble) again, and all three of us pensionistas managed to conquer El Baul one afternoon as well. It's a pretty quick ascent - we took 50 minutes from Doña Elena's to reach the top - and there's a recreation area at the summit, complete with giant concrete slides that kids and teenagers were using to stage varying degrees of shenanigans. I didn't get any pictures of the slide, but I did snap a shot of the view back over Xela:
Finally, my Spanish teacher invited me on an excursion Tuesday morning. I was excited a) for the opportunity to visit another town and b) because we went as amigas instead of teacher-student. I think that's an important milestone.We visited Salcaja, a pueblo 20 minutes or so outside of Xela. My teacher let me accompany her to a girl's home in Salcaja, run by Capuchin nuns, the sister order of the Franciscan monks. Twenty little girls have moved into the nun's shelter from abusive/dangerous situations, and they are given a safe environment to re-learn socially, academically, and spiritually. My teacher likes to support the home with visits and by donating her own clothes, as most donated clothes tend to be men's or boy's clothes. For these girls, the chance to wear sweaters in pastel colors or t-shirts cut to fit them is a real treat. I very much enjoyed the opportunity to meet the sisters and chat with the girls in such an optimistic, positive environment.
After we left the girl's home, my teacher showed me through Salcaja itself. Because it's outside of Xela, if only just barely, the religious traditions have been conserved more so than they have in the city. I was initially skeptical, having already seen processions in all their fervor within Xela, but I came to see what she meant. The homes, for example, were all decorated in purple mantels and makeshift altars were commonplace on the street corners. I especially liked this corner, because it had banners and flowers on the balcony. If I had a house like that I would decorate it similarly for Easter.
Not to be forgotten, Salcaja is also home to the oldest remaining church in all of Central America. It wasn't open when we walked by, but I did get a nice photo-op. There are some bananas carved into the pediment, which is a clear sign of the Spanish priests' flexibility and blending of local traditions with the imported Catholicism, even in the 1520s. Bananas, of course, do not exist naturally in the Vatican or in Old Europe.
Next week should see me back in the clinic after an extended absence (stomach bug + Semana Santa), so I'm hoping I can get back into the swing of things pretty easily. It is also incumbent upon me to attend at least two yoga classes to justify my month's membership. A busy week ahead, indeed.
Until next time, besos y abrazos!
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